My new HD 5870..

DogSoldierDogSoldier The heart of radical Amish country..
edited January 2010 in Hardware
I got tired of the random reboots when gaming... I can't say for sure it was the video card, but it sure feels nice to upgrade! Not that this new card has been easy to deal with, It took about 3 hours of work yesterday before my computer could properly detect it. A lot of cable disconnecting/connecting and card re-seating, and then driver installation/uninstallation. The CD that came with it didn't work, or.. It did, in the beginning but both monitors were stuck at 60 mhz. My eyes would start bleeding inside 30 minutes if I had to work with a 60 mhz refresh rate.. Anyways.. Say hello to my little friend!

new_hd5870_1.jpg

It's huge. I thought my 8800GTS was a monster but this thing is a full 2 inches longer. I thought it wouldn't fit in the case without removing a drive cage, but it fits.. Barely, with about a 1/4 inch to spare.

Now to give you some scale here it is with the card it replaces, a 8800GTS 320 SC, and an even older card, an Radeon 9800 Pro AGP

new_hd5870_2.jpg

Here is another shot of these cards. A little history here, that 9800 Pro was the reason I joined Icrontic (Then ShortMedia) way back when. I flashed it from non-pro to Pro using SimGuy's legendary 9800 Pro flashing thread back in 2003.

new_hd5870_3.jpg

I haven't settled on the new card yet. My system can't detect it using Powerolors ATI drivers so it's using the latest ATI driver. Chances are, since this card is a PCI-E 2.0 card,and my motherboard is PCI-E 1.2 AND XP (5800's are a little weird on XP) that may account for the cards bad behaviour. But if not, I might just RMA this one back for a replacement.

Comments

  • GargGarg Purveyor of Lincoln Nightmares Icrontian
    edited January 2010
    That thing is a beast! Hope you can get it to cooperate. I've got a 5770 on the way, and I hope I don't have too many issues with the drivers.
  • pigflipperpigflipper The Forgotten Coast Icrontian
    edited January 2010
    The problem with it being stuck @ 60hz is something I am continuing to deal with on my 5850. I've come to the conclusion that these cards are designed to work with 120Hz HDLCD s and the like and that they really don't like anything less.

    If you find a solution to getting monitors to go above 60Hz without having to use my hot swapping technique described here: http://icrontic.com/forum/showthread.php?t=87096
    please let me know, very annoying little bug.
  • DogSoldierDogSoldier The heart of radical Amish country..
    edited January 2010
    Hey pigflipper, here's what worked for me. I downloaded the Monitor INF files for my monitors. I downloaded the 32 bit drivers for XP direct from ATI (Not Powercolor) 5800 series. I uninstalled the Powercolor drivers. In Device Manager I uninstalled the 5800 Video card and monitors and rebooted. I then cancelled the new hardware wizard, went to Device Manager and manually installed the INF drivers for the monitors. THEN I installed the ATI drivers. That seemed to work.

    Oh, and maybe try the non-64 bit. http://www.viewsonic.com/support/downloads/drivers/?prod_name=G90f

    BTW, I get over 19000 in 3DMark06, an improvement of about 8000 over my 8800GTS.
  • pigflipperpigflipper The Forgotten Coast Icrontian
    edited January 2010
    My problem is that I am running win7 pro 64 and it refuses to allow the Viewsonic drivers because they are not 64-bit. Funny thing is, if you have noticed from the other thread, the much older A90 is identified perfectly every time. Also, I never even put in the driver disk that came with my XFX card, I just went straight to the reference drivers from AMD.
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